This position must appear a frightful heresy in the eyes of those who represent the confiscation or sequestration of debts, as our best means of retaliation and coercion, as our most powerful, sometimes as our only means of defence.

But so degrading an idea will be rejected with disdain, by every man who feels a true and well-informed national pride; by every man who recollects and glories, that in a state of still greater immaturity, we achieved independence without the aid of this dishonorable expedient;* that even in a revolutionary war, a war of liberty against usurpation, our national councils were too magnanimous to be provoked or tempted to depart so widely from the path of rectitude; by every man, in fine, who, though careful not to exaggerate, for rash and extravagant projects, can nevertheless fairly estimate the real resources of the country, for meeting dangers which prudence cannot avert.

Such a man will never endure the base doctrine, that our security is to depend on the tricks of a swindler. He will look for it in the courage and constancy of a free, brave and virtuous people in the riches of a fertile soil-an extended and progressive industry-in the wisdom and energy of a well-constituted and well-administered government--in the resources of a solid, if well-supported, national credit-in the armies, which, if requisite, could be raised--in the means of maritime annoyance, which, if necessary, could be organized, and with which we could inflict deep wounds on the commerce of a hostile nation. He will indulge an animating consciousness, that while our situation is not such as to justify our courting imprudent enterprises, neither is it such as to oblige us, in any event, to stoop to dishonorable means of security, or to substitute a crooked and piratical policy, for the manly energies of fair and open war.

The federal government never resorted to it; and a few only of the state governments stained themselves with it. It may, perhaps, be said, that the federal goverment had no power on the subject; but the reverse of this is truly the case. The federal government alone had power. The state governments had none, though some of them undertook to exercise it. This position is founded on the solid ground that the confiscation or sequestration of the debts of an enemy is a high act of reprisal and war, necessarily and exclusively incident to the power of making war, which was always in the federal government.

That is the consequence of the favorite doctrine that the confiscation or sequestration of private debts is our most powerful, if not our only, weapon of defence! Great Britain is the sole power against whom we could wield it, since it is to her citizens alone, that we are largely indebted. What are we to do, then, against any other nation which might think fit to menace us? Are we, for want of adequate means of defence, to crouch beneath the uplifted rod, and, with abject despondency, sue for mercy? Or has Providence guaranteed us specially against the malice or ambition of every power on earth, except Great Britain?

It is at once curious and instructive to mark the inconsistencies of the disorganizing sect. Is the question, to discard a spirit of accommodation, and rush into war with Great Britain? Columns are filled with the most absurd exaggerations, to prove that we are able to meet her, not only on equal, but superior terms. Is the question, whether a stipulation against the confiscation or sequestration of private debts ought to have been admitted into the treaty? Then are we a people destitute of the means of war, with neither arms, nor fleets, nor magazinesthen is our best, if not our only weapons of defence, the power of confiscating or sequestrating the debts which are due to the subjects of Great Britain; in other words, the power of committing fraud, of violating the public faith, of sacrificing the principles of commerce, of prostrating credit. Is the question, whether free ships shall make free goods, whether naval stores shall or shall not be deemed contraband? Then is the appeal to what is called the modern law of nations; then is the cry, that recent usage has changed and mitigated the rigor of ancient maxims. But is the question, whether private debts can be rightfully confiscated or sequestered? Then ought the utmost rigor of the ancient doctrine to govern, and modern usage and opinion to be discarded. The old rule or the new is to be adopted or rejected, just as may suit their convenience.

An inconsistency of another kind, but not less curious, is observable in positions, repeatedly heard from the same quarter, namely, that the sequestration of debts is the only peaceable

mean of doing ourselves justice and avoiding war. If we trace the origin of the pretended right to confiscate or sequester debts, we find it, in the very authority, principally relied on to prove it, to be this (Bynkershoeck, quæstiones juris publici, I. s. 2): "Since it is the condition of WAR, that ENEMIES may be deprived of all their rights, it is reasonable, that every thing of an enemy's, found among his enemies, should change its owner, and go to the treasury." Hence it is manifest, that the right itself, if it exist, presupposes, as the condition of its exercise, an actual state of war, the relation of enemy to enemy. Yet we are fastidiously and hypocritically told, that this high and explicit act of war, is a peaceable mean of doing ourselves justice and avoiding war. Why are we thus told? Why is this strange paradox attempted to be imposed upon us? Why, but that it is the policy of the conspirators against our peace, to endeavor to disguise the hostilities, into which they wish to plunge us, with a specious outside, and to precipitate us down the precipice of war, while we imagine we are quietly and securely walking along its summit.

Away with these absurd and incongruous sophisms! Blush, ye apostles of temerity, of meanness, and of deception! Cease to beckon us to war, and at the same time to freeze our courage by the cowardly declaration, that we have no resource but in fraud! Cease to attempt to persuade us, that peace may be obtained by means which are unequivocal acts of war. Cease to tell us, that war is preferable to dishonor, and yet, as our first step, to urge us into irretrievable dishonor. A magnanimous, a sensible people, cannot listen to your crude conceptions. Why will ye persevere in accumulating ridicule and contempt upon your own heads?

In the further observations which I shall offer on this article, I hope to satisfy, not the determined leaders or instruments of faction, but all discerning men, all good citizens, that, instead of being a blemish, it is an ornament to the instrument in which it is contained; that it is as consistent with true policy as with substantial justice; that it is, in substance, not without precedent in our other treaties, and that the objections to it are futile.

CAMILLUS.

NO. XIX.

1795.

The objects protected by the 10th article, are classed under four heads:-1. Debts of individuals to individuals; 2, property of individuals in the public funds; 3, property of individuals in public banks; 4, property of individuals in private banks. These, if analyzed, resolve themselves, in principle, into two discriminations, viz., private debts, and private property in public funds. The character of private property prevails throughout. No property of either government is protected from confiscation or sequestration by the other. This last circumstance merits attention, because it marks the true boundary.

The propriety of the stipulation will be examined under these several aspects: the right to confiscate or sequestrate private debts or private property in public funds, on the ground of reason and principle-the right as depending on the opinions of jurists and on usage-the policy and expediency of the practice -the analogy of the stipulation with stipulations in our other treaties, and in treaties between other nations.

First, as to the right on the ground of reason and principle. The general proposition on which it is supported, is this, "That every individual of a nation, with whom we are at war, wheresoever he may be, is our enemy, and his property of every kind, in every place, liable to capture by right of war."

The only exception admitted to this rule, respects property within the jurisdiction of a neutral state; but the exemption is referred to the right of the neutral nation, not to any privilege which the situation gives to the enemy proprietor.

Reason, if consulted, will suggest another exception. This regards all such property as the laws of a country permit for. eigners to acquire within it or to bring into it. The right of holding or having property in a country, always implies a duty on the part of its government to protect that property, and secure to the owner the full enjoyment of it. Whenever, therefore, a government grants permission to foreigners to acquire property

within its teritories, or to bring and deposit it there, it tacitly promises protection and security. It must be understood to engage, that the foreign proprietor, as to what he shall have acquired or deposited, shall enjoy the rights, privileges and immunities of a native proprietor, without any other exceptions. than those which the established laws may have previously declared. How can any thing else be understood? Every state, when it has entered into no contrary engagement, is free to permit or not to permit foreigners to acquire or bring property within its jurisdiction; but if it grant the right, what is there to make the tenure of the foreigner different from that of the native, if antecedent laws have not pronounced a difference? Property, as it exists in civilized society, if not a creature of, is, at least, regulated and defined by, the laws. They prescribe the manner in which it shall be used, alienated, or transmitted; the conditions on which it may he held, perserved, or forfeited. It is to them we are to look for its rights, limitations, and conditions. No condition of enjoyment, no cause of forfeiture, which they have not specified, can be presumed to exist. An extraordinary discretion to resume or take away the thing, without any personal fault of the proprietor, is inconsistent with the notion of property. This seems always to imply a contract between the society and the individual; that he shall retain and be protected in the possession and use of his property, so long as he shall observe and perform the conditions which the laws have annexed to the tenure. It is neither natural nor equitable to consider him as subject to be deprived of it, for a cause foreign to himself: still less for one which may depend on the volition or pleasure, even of the very government to whose protection it has been confided: for the proposition, which affirms the right to confiscate or sequester, does not distinguish between offensive or defensive war; between a war of ambition on the part of the power which exercises the right, or a war of self-preservation against the assaults of another.

The property of a foreigner placed in another country, by permission of its laws, may justly be regarded as a deposit, of which the society is the trustee. How can it it be reconciled with.